Inventions in steam engines, cotton mills, and iron works converged in the eighteenth century to propel the First Industrial Revolution. Inventions in internal combustion engines, electrification, and steelmaking in the nineteenth century ushered in the Second Industrial Revolution. Today, twentieth-century inventions in digital technology are being conjoined with twenty-first-century innovations in software, materials and advanced manufacturing processes, robotics, and web-based services to inaugurate the Third Industrial Revolution. Today, at the dawn of the nexus of the future, ideas for inventions stand only a small chance of being realized and competing in the marketplace unless they’re generated or picked up by corporations.
